Archive for October, 2007

This just might be my last post to this blog. As an experiment Bread & Sanity [an earlier blog] has come to an end, or become redundant, recently I’ve been focusing on writing and reading on education, so I’ve been posting, when I do here (dead link). Recently I’ve also been reading a lot more than I’m writing, which doesn’t give any clue to the amount of time I’ve spent reading, because I’ve written nothing.

There is some writing on education on this blog, which will be moved, but much of the other writing will be moved as well. With labels finding my notes won’t be a problem, and I’m also not worried about any kind of focus. Education is always just one system/concept in a very large world system/concept. With focus you lose perspective.

Yes, notes. I’m also using a blog as a collection of notes, or a collector of notes, obviously both private and public. Who am I writing to right now, you as much as myself, and more myself, as existing and hoping to make some use of these notes in the future.

Why theory? In a note on Dewey I wrote a little about perfect theory, or perfecting theory maybe learning theory, or evolving theory, but perfect is what I’m after. Does this idea fly in the academy? Perfect has been critiqued and found suspect. Now anyone who considered the project is considered ignorant of accepted wisdom. So again, Why Theory? Always non-perfectable, always partially inapplicable, so why? I’m not suggesting that there is a perfect theory, but that I should work toward one. The concept of perfect theory is playful, light-hearted. Saul Alinsky begins his Rules for Radicals with an over the shoulder nod to the very first radical, Lucifer. Power rejects all challengers, and with this understanding the meaning of rejection becomes a problem. If a theory has been rejected it can be a powerful theory for change as easily as the ravings of a lunatic. The problem is that if your ideas aren’t rejected by power, they’re useless, and if they are there’s a very good chance they’re still useless.

"The very moment philosophers proclaim ownership of their ideas, they are allying themselves to the powers they are criticizing."

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." — Che Guevara